Holidaymakers injured by crashing Arctic ice
Friday, 10 Aug 2007 10:16
British holidaymakers on a sightseeing cruise in the Norwegian Arctic have been injured by crashing ice from a glacier.
As many as 16 people are thought to have been injured in the incident, which took place off the coast of the Svalbard Islands archipelago yesterday.
Stein Iversen, press officer for the Norwegian Embassy, told travelbite.co.uk last night six people had been flown to the mainland for hospital treatment - five Britons and one Russian.
Another ten were taken to hospital in the archipelago's main town of Longyearbyen, nine of which have since been discharged.
Mr Iversen said this was the first time an accident like this had happened, despite a glacier calving (when ice splits from a glacier) being a regular occurrence in the arctic.
The holidaymakers were on a cruise led by the Dutch tour operator Oceanwide Expeditions.